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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823350">Second Thoughts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes'>panchostokes (badwolfrun)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Lone Wolf [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Mutual Pining, Poor Jack Dalton (Macgyver 2016), Pre-Series, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:13:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The immediate aftermath of Belarus, and Jack returning home just in time to say goodbye.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sarah Adler/Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Lone Wolf [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Second Thoughts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Jack/Sarah + “I feel sick…so anxious and sick and like my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest.” for @and-bingo-was-his-name-o ( @eads-issues)</p><p>warning for mentions of illness and death, and angst. Just pure, heavy, unadulterated angst. emphysema idea credited to @12percentplan</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> "Is this a confession? 'Cause we're getting out of here alive, so...don't say anything you might regret." </em>
</p><p>They had just gotten out of Belarus by the skin of their teeth, and while it wasn’t his first brush with death, nor was it hers, it was the one that would changed <em> everything.  </em></p><p>He’s still riding high on the adrenaline of an impossible escape, euphoric from the realization that he’s still <em> alive. </em> All the substances in the world combined couldn’t produce this amount of pure...happiness. </p><p>But it doesn’t stop him from indulging in a hit of nicotine in the form of a cigarette, straight from a custom-printed box of the “Red Apple” brand. </p><p>Pop culture references, the band-shirts under layers of a long sleeve shirt and his tac vest, indulging in the fantasy of being an action hero...all of it made him feel at home, when he was away from home. </p><p>And while he can’t wait to go back there, share the smoke with his father, he’s still plenty happy in the company of Sarah Adler. </p><p>“Really, Jack?” Sarah groans from the other side of the truck taking them to their extraction point. She’s in the far corner closest to the driver, licking her wounds while he sits closest to the back end, licking his own and also keeping an eye out for any stragglers. </p><p>“Really, Sarah,” he grunts, and holds the unlit stick out towards her. She shakes her head and he digs out his lighter.</p><p>“Remember Obi-Wan, and how he didn’t wanna buy any of that guy’s death sticks? Told him to go home and re-evaluate his life?”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I had to do after seeing all three of those damn prequels. Although Obi-Wan was quite possibly the best part of them, I’ll give you that,” Jack laughs while he orchestrates the dialogue with his free hand, the so-called “death stick” resting in the corner of his lip. </p><p>“Kind of funny for you to celebrate your life by poisoning it, that’s all I’m saying, especially with all the damage that’s been done to it already...”</p><p>Jack’s smile falls as he realizes she’s right. He eyes the rips and holes on his sleeves, wipes the blood oozing down from his forehead, the grime in the creases of his face. The adrenaline is fading, his calves seem to constrict around themselves, his lungs feel just as tight. He tugs the wrapping on his grazed arm tighter when he feels the blood flow start to pulse faster out of his body.</p><p>Beyond that, he knows that if it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive, so he owes it to her to follow her advice...</p><p>He’ll only smoke half of this one.</p><p>“Ya know, maybe we don’t even need to get married, you nag me enough already,” Jack chuckles while he taps the excess ash to the ground sliding out beneath their bumpy ride. </p><p>“You’d be so lucky,” Sarah laughs back. </p><p>“Yeah, yeah I would,” Jack whispers beneath his breath. He bows his head, the rush completely faded, leaving him to fully explore the ruins of recovery as the pain buckles down…</p><p>And he buckles over, when they hit the largest bump on the ride at that point.</p><p>He falls out of the truck and onto the road, rolling on top of his own smoking gun and getting the worst case of road rash he’s had since he learned how to ride a bike. </p><p>“Jack!” Sarah calls out, slamming on the walls to stop the vehicle and retrieve her friend.</p><p>But not before the transport behind them runs over his leg. </p><p>Or at least Sarah thinks, as Jack is sprawled out on the ground with his leg twisted in a direction that is not normal.</p><p>Jack’s momentarily motionless in pain, a silent howl trapped in expanded lungs, rotting lungs, oh god maybe he should quit smoking after all--</p><p>“C’mon you big lug! You better not be dead…” Sarah mutters on her way to tend to Jack, turning him over and her eyes scanning all over his body, a hand hovering over his leg. </p><p>“S-sarah, come...c’mere,” Jack wheezes, shaking fingers reaching for her hair, twisting into her curling strands. “Something I wanta...tell ya…”</p><p>“Jack…” Sarah’s face falls, shaking her head, a conflict shining in her eyes. Lust and regret, they’ve been dancing the line for so long, perhaps this is it, the crossing. Her lips draw nearer, mirroring the pucker of his own…</p><p>But before they can meet, he presses a finger to her lips and her face freezes.</p><p>“Having second thoughts?” Jack echoes Sarah’s words from hours before with a husky teasing tone, and her wiped face is renewed with a knowing smile, swatting Jack playfully before pulling him up. </p><p>“You are such an ass sometimes, you know that?” Sarah laughs at him. </p><p>“Careful, careful!” he whines as he drags his leg behind him. </p><p>“It’s not broken, is it?”</p><p>“I don’t...think so?” he groans. “I was able to roll outta the way in time, I think I’m still cramped from ya know, everything else...Maybe I just need to walk it off…”</p><p>“We are <em> not </em> walking the rest of the twenty miles to exfil!”</p><p>“Fair enough,” Jack pants. “I guess...the next ten feet will have to do...Ah, damn...All that running we did earlier is catching up to me.”</p><p>“That’s two you owe me now, big guy,” Sarah pats his chest. </p><p>“Oh, so we’re counting now?” Jack smiles back, knowing she’s trying to distract him with flirts from his pain. </p><p>But another distraction comes soon enough, as they step forward, the ground explodes in a small tornado of dirt that shoots up like a firework, and spreads in a small circle that encloses them. The burns on his skin from the road rash are reignited, he feels a searing heat rise up his back as he immediately twists to cover Sarah. He pushes her back, they both end up on the ground and his ankle <em> screams </em>at him not to move.</p><p>The dust settles, shouts from the other operatives barking out orders and delegating commands are lost to the ringing of Jack’s ears, just as he’s lost in Sarah’s eyes. He can’t hear his own voice, but keeps asking her, “are you okay?” over and over, despite her giving an answer multiple times with lips that he can’t read, but they have a level of nonverbal communication that tells him that yes, she's okay.</p><p>The ringing fades quickly, however, and he uses his hand to brush her hair out of her face, before looking down at the rest of her body. No damage done other than almost being crushed under his weight. </p><p>“Okay...make that one,” Sarah breathes. </p><p>Jack laughs and he brings her up with him, though he sinks down his weight on his good leg. </p><p>“I think I actually twisted something,” he admits, when Sarah re-examines him and brushes the dust off of his shirt. </p><p>“Well we’re definitely not going to be playing any more hopscotch by ‘walking it off,’’ she tells him, as she and the driver of their vehicle assists them back into the vehicle, this time, with Jack sitting closer to the center. </p><p>“Let’s never come to Belarus again,” Jack pants. </p><p>“Deal,” Sarah smirks, placing a hand on his knee. </p><p>He places his on top, as his other hand digs for the crushed pack of cigarettes.</p><p>“Jack!” Sarah exclaims in a disapproving tone.</p><p>“Sarah!” Jack mirrors the volume of her voice. “I think I’ve earned it after...that.”</p><p>He thumbs to the open road behind them which is falling as fast as it did before, an air of caution now exercised by their getaway driver. </p><p>She shakes her head away, but leaves her hand on his knee, even when he removes his other hand to light the stick. He throws his arm behind her, reeling her in closer to him as he leans casually with the cigarette in his mouth. He thinks about how his is probably the closest to a domestic moment with the woman he’ll never get, and suddenly he feels guilty for his part in the flirting, playing a losing game that they both know is doing nothing more than hurt the other, because maybe in another time they could have…</p><p>And yet, maybe they still can. They can be a super secret CIA power couple, just like Matty and Ethan. They can all go on double dates. They don’t have to risk their careers for their love, when it’s the very thing that brought them together. They can make it work, if she wants him. </p><p>He puffs out a stream of smoke towards the road behind them, clears his throat, and decides to tell her how much she really means to him. An appeal to see if she feels the same, because how could she know, if he doesn’t tell her? </p><p>He looks at her, she’s leaning her head on his shoulder, exhausted, but awake. </p><p>“Seriously, Sarah, I just wanna…” Jack begins, but his voice trails off as his phone starts to ring. Perhaps it was Matty checking in on them, she probably knew about the landmine before it even happened.</p><p>“Who’s that, the Hun?” Sarah asks with a yawn. “Tell her the jet better have extra pillows…”</p><p>“No, it’s...it’s my sister,” Jack frowns, recognizing the number before he answers it. It’s not that she never calls, they talk quite frequently, in fact, but the time of her call is...odd. She knew enough about his job to know that he wasn’t always reachable.</p><p>Especially not on his work phone, which was usually a burner. </p><p>“Mare-bear, what’s...how did you get this number?” Jack’s voice falls lowly, sternly. </p><p>“Jack...where are you?” Mary’s voice wobbles through the speaker. </p><p>“Are you hurt?”</p><p>“No, no I’m...<em> I’m </em>okay but Dad…”</p><p>He hears a coughing fit on the other line. </p><p>“Tell ‘im not ta worry, darlin!” he can just barely hear the old man croak. “Just a cold or some shit, ain’t nothin’ gonna do me in.”</p><p>“How did you get this number?” Jack repeats again, fury flaring his nostrils. </p><p>“They say he-he doesn’t have...much longer…” Mary sobs. </p><p>This is fake. It has to be fake. Some terrorist, some techno genius asshole found a way to imitate his sister and father’s voices and <em> this isn’t real. </em></p><p>“Number. How?” Jack growls, as if it’s the most important question in the world. It’s at this point that Sarah gets her own call, and retreats away from Jack, despite his grip on her hand begging, <em> please don’t go. </em></p><p>“I-I called that number you gave me, your contact for extreme em-emergencies. T-talked to Muh-Matilda? Please, <em> please, </em>Jack, just...Just come home!” </p><p>A small wave--more like a hiccup, really, of relief washes over him before he realizes he almost wishes it was fake, that he wasn’t talking to his <em> real </em> sister and <em> real </em>father. </p><p>“I’m coming, Mary, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare ya,” he winces as he hunches over, accidentally shifting his weight that trickles onto his injured ankle. “What do the doctors think he’s got?”</p><p>“Emphysema.”</p><p>He’s grateful it’s not cancer.</p><p>“Well, see now, Mare, that’s-that’s not so bad, he’s just gotta stop...smoking and-and he might have a few years left--”</p><p>“He hasn’t stopped. Not going to. Stubborn as a mule,” Mary sniffles. “He’s refusing surgery, just using these damn oxygen tanks that are driving me up a wall--”</p><p>So <em> that </em>was the hissing he was hearing in the background, on top of the disgruntled family cat that always seemed to get upset when Jack wasn’t around. </p><p>“The doctor told me to...to get everyone together. Say their final goodbyes,” Mary whispers. “Jack, please, just...just hurry--”</p><p>Jack hangs up the phone. Flings it at the other end of the truck. It bounces back onto the floor, taunting him before he stomps on it and kicks it out entirely with such speed and force as if it were a grenade.</p><p>He buries his hands in his head, his eyes burning at the pain of his heart slowly tearing apart at the duct tape that’s barely holding it together in the first place, rapping itself against his rib cage, politely asking to just leave his body entirely.</p><p>He can just imagine the sight that’s waiting for him at home, the image of his once strong, healthy father sitting in the armchair replaced with one that’s tied up in tubes connected to tanks of compressed air, his body shriveled and coughing and...<em> weak.  </em></p><p>It’s not right.</p><p>Hearing Mary cry was <em> not right.  </em></p><p>His stomach is tied in a knot, growling and empty yet swirling in nausea. His head feels light, he wonders if he’s asleep, fallen into some nightmare. </p><p>He’s used to that, can deal with that. </p><p>He’s not used to this. </p><p>Can’t deal with this.</p><p>“Jack?” Sarah’s voice cuts through the echoes of his sister in his head, playing back the conversation that he fucked up so badly, he’d have to apologize the first chance he got if it wasn’t too late to keep her heart, either.</p><p>“I feel sick…so anxious and sick and like my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest…” Jack waves his hand, encouraging air to enter his body but it’s not coming fast enough, his lungs need more--his darkening lungs, the same lungs that he was just singing with the chemical wrapped up in a piece of paper. </p><p>His fingers shake, thinking about how so desperately he needs one, but knows that if he does, his sister is going to have to bury two bodies. </p><p>“Oh, Jack…” Sarah cups a hand on his cheek that wraps to the back of his head, pulling him against her chest. </p><p>“W-who were you talking to?” Jack tries to change the subject as he wrestles for calm, but the answer just upsets him more.</p><p>“Matty. She filled me in. We’re taking you home right now.” </p><p>“But...but the debrief--”</p><p>“She’ll do it on the plane, she was already on it anyway.”</p><p>“Fuck. I can’t...can’t let her see me like this,” Jack lifts himself up, wiping his eyes. “This is stupid. I’m trained to handle...far worse than this…”</p><p>“You can’t just hold it in, Jack,” Sarah warns him. “It’s okay, I’m--”</p><p>Jack shakes his head abruptly, cutting the conversation off. He straightens his back, enters the dark recesses of his mind that render him the emotionless mute he was conditioned to be. Chokes back the tears in a silent struggle with the rest of his face that’s fighting against stagnation, but in less than a minute he has complete control, focusing on nothing but the solid color of the truck’s wall in front of him.  </p><p>Mercifully, Sarah doesn’t press, and gives him space. </p><p>But he doesn’t need space.</p><p>He needs <em> her.  </em></p><p>Without looking, he reaches for her hand that was already extended out, and it fits together perfectly with his own.  </p><hr/><p>Sarah insists on getting a motel room despite Mary’s protests of inviting her to stay at the ranch, and Jack’s protests that she’s done enough and doesn’t have to be there at all.</p><p>But she knows Jack more than he knows himself. Knows he’s going to need somewhere to storm off to. An unfamiliar, yet familiar place to let himself unravel. To just exist in his pain. She’s not a stranger to death, she’s seen it firsthand more times than she can count on both of her hands. She knows Jack must have had a few family deaths himself by this point in his life--he often talks about his late grandfather, but losing a parent...is something she has yet to go through herself.</p><p>Then again, she hasn’t even talked to her parents in god, ten years?</p><p>She thinks about calling them as she waits in the motel room. Even though Jack has a key, she limits her time outside of it, only leaving to get something out of the vending machine or out for food. </p><p>He doesn’t actually come by for three days.</p><p>She doesn’t mind.</p><p>She waits as long as she has to, suddenly grateful for the corporate side of their job that allows such time for bereavement. Or rather, more grateful for their boss, who most definitely bent the rules and pulled favors to allow this gift of time that otherwise would have remained unwrapped and Jack wouldn’t have had any time at all. </p><p>And nor would she. </p><p>He comes by knocking on the door as if he were a visitor. Her heart pangs when she sees him, disheveled and without sleep. Red puffy eyes. Overgrown stubble spreading from his unkempt goatee. Pale as the bed sheets on the beds behind her.</p><p>He doesn’t meet her eyes when he tells her that the funeral is tomorrow. Tells her the time and place. </p><p>She goes, but remains hidden from view next to forgotten graves and a large tree. She inwardly rolls her eyes at the cliche as she knows Jack feels her presence nonetheless. He’s standing next to his sister, in uniform. Clean shaven and even with a short haircut. </p><p>He doesn’t cry, even as his own father is buried in the earth. As the rest of his family screams and cries and wails. He remains silent and still as ever. It’s sad and unnerving, knowing that on the inside, he's clawing at the walls of the coffin, begging for him not to go.</p><p>He doesn’t cry as his sister pounds against his chest, screaming unintelligible words that she pretends not to hear, because it’s none of her business. </p><p>He doesn’t cry as they finally depart from the burial site, two adult children leaving one of their parents behind, carrying the mother Sarah had never met between their arms as she holds the folded flag in his memory. They’re almost dragging her along, and he’s still limping, the twist in his ankle not quite turned back to its normal position. Just a dab of salt on the wound. </p><p>He doesn’t cry as he meets her eyes from across the vast graveyard, a gulp shaking down his neck and a nod in her direction. A silent sign of gratitude, and she thinks it’s the least she could do.</p><p>She wishes she could do more. </p><p><em> Be more, </em> for him. </p><p>He doesn’t cry when he returns to the motel in the middle of the night, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other. He didn’t knock this time, just let himself in. Sits on the bed. Tells her <em> everything </em>that had happened in the past four days. </p><p>Tells her how immediately after she left him on the doorstep, he felt like he was at home and it felt <em> so good. </em>He didn’t realize how much he missed everything, from his sister’s laughter to his mother’s cooking to their pets' joy at seeing him to his father...being well, his father.</p><p>“You wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong, save for the random coughing and hacking and air tanks littered through the house. Damn fool refused to wheel them around, and insisted on moving himself around his own house.”</p><p>He tells her how everyone in his extended family started to come, too. How it was nice, at first, to see some uncles and aunts and cousins he hadn’t seen in a long time, but knew that the web that brought them all together was collapsing, and fast.</p><p>“It was somehow even worse than I could have imagined. Seeing him like that, it just...made all of us feel so...small. And helpless. And useless.”</p><p>He pats the box of cigarettes into the palm of his hand, goading one of the sticks out. He holds it in his fingers, she can only imagine the metaphor running in his head, that he’s holding the life he views as so small and short in his fingers.</p><p>She still disapproves of the vice, but figures some slack is needed in this case. She doesn’t say a word as he pulls the lighter out.</p><p>But to her surprise, and secret pleasure, he doesn’t light it. Flicks the stick into the can in the corner of the room, and the box follows soon after it. </p><p>While she had seen death before, she never saw it quite so slowly and painstakingly long as Jack continues to describe--even though it only took a few days, in this instance. </p><p>Granted, anything longer than a minute was long enough.</p><p>He continues to tell her the events leading up to that last day, and the detail is delivered with an almost...professional coldness, as if he were giving a debrief report. It hurts her head and her heart that he must have to think this way in order to let it all out, though she hopes he knows that he won’t be able to let go so easily but handing in his “report.”</p><p>He tells her how his father asked for him to fetch his cigar box.</p><p>And <em> that’s </em>when he starts crying.</p><p>“We...We got in a fight. Shouting match. I never...<em> never </em>shouted at him before. And he never shouted at me! I broke Mama’s heart, broke Mary’s, broke Dad’s a-and I just...ruined it all…”</p><p>He’s lost for a few minutes, unable to speak, every word getting jumbled and lost in translation from his throbbing throat</p><p>“He just wanted one final cigar. With his son. His final wish. That’s all he wanted. And I...I couldn’t give it to him.” </p><p>He shakes as he buckles over, Sarah catches him before he falls off the edge of bed entirely, pulls him in a tight embrace. They fall back onto the firm, not entirely comfortable mattress and she has nothing to offer him, no words, just a comforting embrace, a mirroring shower of her own tears flowing like a waterfall. </p><p>And a passionate, intimate and wet kiss as they inch their shaking lips close together, connecting in the face of loss and regret, in an empathy and understanding that promotes their relationship to a higher level than ever before. </p><p>She thinks about telling him...<em> asking </em> him, if he wants her to stay with him. For good. <em> Forever. </em> That she’d leave her boyfriend behind--he was more of a cover than anything, really, she wasn’t necessarily... <em> attached </em>to him, or so she thought in this particular moment.</p><p>But it’s not the right time to utter such words, not while his heart is open and exposed and more <em> vulnerable </em>than she’s ever seen it before. </p><p>And besides that, if he said no, what would she do then? The tower of strength she built for him would crumble, and he’d be left alone to hide from the taunting reapers that have haunted him since he arrived back to Texas. </p><p>So she remains silent, and they eventually fall asleep, melted into the damp pool of shared tears and gripping each other as they sink together in the throes of despair.</p><hr/><p>He is the first to wake, and allows himself a few moments of reflection before he removes himself from the bed. He prays for a lot of things, so much so that this final prayer is just a cherry on top of a large, pleading cake for time to reverse and for his life to be trapped in a loop where his father never dies, where <em> nobody </em>ever dies--but this cherry isn’t asking for that. </p><p>It’s asking for time to stop entirely, and leave him trapped in this moment with the woman he loves. </p><p>That is, until he sees the time on the clock. Knows that his mother and sister are awake, and would be looking for him. The last thing he needs is their panic on his conscience, so he slips away and manages to make it home before the table is even set for breakfast. </p><p>He doesn’t eat, doesn’t even drink the steaming cup of coffee that he’d normally be on the third serving at this point, but instead thinks of the woman, the <em> life </em>he left in the motel room.</p><p>He packs his bags and says goodbye, not for the first time in this cruel week.</p><p>And not for the last, either.</p><p>He stops by the local diner that has the best pie he’s ever tasted in his life, picks up her favorite meal and a slice of heaven, hoping she hadn’t resorted to having a piecemeal paid with quarters and dimes from the shitty vending machine. </p><p>And he’s even more elated when he bursts in to find her awake, talking, on the phone, to their boss. </p><p>“Understood...Yes, ma’am, I’ll get the first flight out.” she hangs up the phone, her eyes widen as she sees Jack, her chest puffing in an inhale that she doesn’t release. </p><p>“That the Hun? We got a new mission?” Jack asks eagerly, a smile spreading on his face as he drops his duffel bag in the room. </p><p>“I do. You don’t,” Sarah breathes shortly.</p><p>“What...What do you mean? I’m not coming with you on this one?” </p><p>“It’s not like we’re a package deal, Jack,” Sarah chuckles humorlessly as she begins to re-pack her belongings into her own bag. </p><p>“Yeah, but I can’t be on the bench while the world needs saving--”</p><p>“You’re not on the <em> bench, </em> you’re on a <em> break. </em>It’s different.”</p><p>“I don’t need a <em> break, </em>Sar,” Jack hisses, dropping the food on the dresser that Sarah shuts quickly. “I need to work.”</p><p>“Take it up with HR, then, I’m not your boss.”</p><p>Jack bellows a cruel laugh. </p><p>“What, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, sunshine?” his hoarse voice dripping with sarcasm.</p><p>“Jack…” Sarah starts in a warning tone. </p><p>“C’mon, just rip the band-aid off, what did I do to piss you off now?”</p><p>“You’re not...pissing me off.” </p><p>“Then what’s with the hostility, baby--” </p><p>Jack’s anger subsides, he falls into a soft, seducing bravado as he twirls her hair between two fingers, leaning his head into hers as she pretends not to notice him.</p><p>“That,” she replies without emotion. “We can’t...We can’t do this, Jack. And you--you can't just skip through the stages of grief like this and pretend it's okay."</p><p>Jack retreats immediately, his mouth agape, muted words escaping his mouth ask for an explanation.</p><p>“Listen, I know...I know how it feels after someone...passes and how your heart just...becomes this...sentient blob reaching out for anything it can grab, only to throw it away when it realizes it’s...it’s time to move on.”</p><p>She zips up her bag, avoids his eyes as she walks towards the door. Her hand on the knob, she waits, as if she’s waiting for him to unfreeze from the statue he’s become, reach out and tell her that he’s not ready to move on, because he’s not--</p><p>“Goodbye, Jack.”</p><p>She exits the motel room that he sentences himself to for the next three days, not wanting to go back home, to burden his grief onto his mother and sister, but unsure of where else to go, other than to Sarah.</p><p>Who’s gone. </p><p>He contemplates revisiting his old haunting grounds in his hometown. Ringing up old buddies to grab a drink. Do <em> something </em>other than just wrap himself in a blanket with a do-not-disturb sign on the door, only picking at the wasting breakfast for sustenance when he feels like his body is going to start eating itself. </p><p>It’s not until the motel phone rings that he’s shaken out of the liminal space of his makeshift prison cell, and realizes that Sarah was right. It’s time to move on.</p><p>“Dalton,” he answers, and already knows it’s not the motel staff before he hears the voice on the other line.</p><p>“It’s Webber, I have a new assignment for you, if you’re ready.”</p><p>“I am. Lay it on me, boss lady,” Jack sighs in relief. She outlines the case details, he spends all his focus and attention on them, grateful for the cold callousness of business instead of any sort of sympathetic soliloquy.</p><p>That doesn’t come until the end of the call. </p><p>“Jack...listen...I’m sorry for your--”</p><p>Jack hangs up, packs his bags, and moves to his next mission.</p><p>Selling bathroom tiles in Los Angeles. </p>
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